Described below are a method and a receiver for decoding digital information which is transmitted utilizing wired communication.
8B/10B coding schemes, as an example of so-called MRL Coding (Maximum Run Length Coding), are the basis for many high speed serial protocols and standards, such as CPRI, 1000Base-X, Fiber Channel, InfiniBand, 10GBASE-X, 10GFC, XAUI, and Serial Rapid 10, used for wired communication. 8B/10B coding schemes are relatively popular, because they provide, besides the data transmission as such, embedded clocking and control information. Applications of 8B/10B may include SERDES devices for communication applications, backplane transceivers within Internet switches and routers, and chip-to-chip communication.
The data rates of such wired data communication are likely to increase, potentially compromising the quality of the signals to be received caused, for instance, by cross-talk and line losses. This may increase the bit error rate at the receiving end of a related communication system.
8B/10B coding schemes may provide for error detection within received data packets. 8B/10B coding schemes, however, do normally not provide error correction of such data packets.
In order to achieve error correction, additional redundant bits may be transmitted or data that have been received in error may be transmitted again. This, however, results in an increasing number of overhead bits.
Published European application for patent No. 1 351 462 A1 discloses applying additional error correction during transmission of 8B/10B pattern without increasing the number of overhead bits. An additional “coding layer” is added, wherein the 8B/10B encoded data go through a low latency encoding process during transmission and are regenerated by a complementary low latency decoding process during the receive process. Consequently, appropriate transmitters and receivers are needed, complicating interoperability with known devices. Furthermore, the additional “coding layer” may complicate clock recovery at the receiver.